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Oct 2006

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14

How do they do that?

I have seen guys like jarzombek, chris penne of the dillinger escape plan and tom haake of meshuggah and other drummers belonging to genres requiring complex drumming orchestration, able to play extremely complex drumming sequences and riffs without any presence of notation, they do this purely on memory, how the hell do they do that? how do you not forget such complexity 10 seconds in? there has to be some kind of method to the automatic recollection of all the notes and their placements etc. tom maybe you can kill this one...

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Jun 2006

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Hillsboro, OR

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The only way I can see them remembering it is the fact that THEY wrote it! That, and the fact that they have played it 100's of times perfecting it. I can never remember the really complex stuff that somebody else has written, but if I came up with it myself, I don't have a problem remembering it.

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Jul 2006

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Inside my bass drum

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im with drumbum i can listen to someone play some crazy stuff and not have a clue but if i invent a beat simmilar to it I.E. useing many of the same technique ( cant spell ) i can play it nearly perfectly the first time through and just work on it untill ive got it perfected...plus these guys are prolly working on their beats ntil their satisfiyed with it ..i know i do, i wont call a song done till im satisfiyed with the beat, even if some of it is really simple...

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At my house...er...the banks house

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Some musician's can't copy themselves either. Ever wonder why Richie Blackmore plays a different solo every time he plays "Smoke On The Water"? It's because he can't remember how he played the last time.

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Apr 2006

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Originally Posted by progmuso

I have seen guys like jarzombek, chris penne of the dillinger escape plan and tom haake of meshuggah and other drummers belonging to genres requiring complex drumming orchestration, able to play extremely complex drumming sequences and riffs without any presence of notation, they do this purely on memory, how the hell do they do that? how do you not forget such complexity 10 seconds in? there has to be some kind of method to the automatic recollection of all the notes and their placements etc. tom maybe you can kill this one...

It's a great question and it used to bother the hell out of me because my memory has never been as good and it's actually hurt me to a degree in some of the more complex bands I've played in. I really believe that some musicians (people) have a greater capacity to memorize (of course the experts will debate that). Buddy Rich did it. Dennis Chambers does it. I've seen him play the most difficult arrangements you can imagine with Mike Stern and 2 weeks later you'll see him playing equally as difficult charts with John Scofield. All by memory! The guy must be a walking memory stick! He's got 100 gigabytes of fusion arrangements hard-wired into his skull. Ha!

- Tom

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Jun 2006

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Granite City/St. Louis

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How do they do that?

Some drummers have killer memories...some practice incessantly so it sounds the same first time and every time. Me? If I've come up with a certain riff that I play time after time, I'll have it memorized in short order. But I can play the same basic song five times and I'll play it a little differently each time (set or hand percussion, but especially hand percussion). It fits, but I throw in an accent in a different place or do something as the spirit moves me...it sounds cool, but if someone asks me to put it into tabs, I actually have to break it down before I can explain it to someone else.

And for me, Chiko, some songs are NEVER done...I'm always looking for something new to add, bro'!

keep the beat goin' ... Don't keep it to yourself!

Charlie

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." --Henry David Thoreau, "Walden," 1854

"There's a lot to be said for Time Honored tradition and value." --In memory of Frank "fiacovaz" Iacovazzi

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Oct 2006

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14

To me it seems that funny enough, when youre playing the most complex of your drum riffing, your conscious concentration is not even there, so i dont know if i can agree that its memory as much as it is muscle memory because when you bring the stick to the skin, you are not saying 'do that',you just do; furthermore, when my body is recollecting structures complex for me, i found that actually consciously concentrating on recollecting screws up my co-ord. I was thinking about this and realized that for these guys its not a hobby, its a job and they will use two devices to achieve these riff recollections, the one, i believe, is that generally, they can read quite well and this is needed to record the complex structure in the first place and then like tom said, i think they just play it until they dont need the page anymore, when you look at choreagraphed dancers, those that execute it best look like they arent trying to focus on what theyre doing because its a rehearsed 2nd nature action. Also, i have spoken to drummers who say that sometimes they struggle to play to studio click tracks not because they cant keep time but that a new complex structure overwhelms them and may require a few takes to get accustomed to.